banjo

Sorry about waking up this sleeping thread, but I just saw it.

I don't bother with full backups any more on my desktop system. I suppose if you are running a server full backups are important, but with my desktop it is overkill. I want to make sure that I don't lose *my* files, but I am not so concerned about system files. If I fry a disk, I might want to just do an OS upgrade anyway and go from there. So I just wrote a bash script that reads a list of files/directories from a file I call ".backupfiles" and copies them to an external USB drive using cp -dRu. The "u" switch copies a file only if it is newer than what is on the external drive.

I can do a "complete" backup of everything I want to preserve in about 10 minutes.

I used to try doing full backups, and I spent hours at it with very little payback.

Just another option to look into.

Linux rocks! :D

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Seamless transition! :D

I booted the computer this morning and the time was correct.

Thanks to all.

Linux rocks!

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I just followed the procedure in the link and it appears to be a success (if zdump is correct).

I am running Mandriva 2006, and I had to link /etc/localtime as explained by pmpatrick:

# mv /etc/localtime /etc/localtime-backup
# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York  /etc/localtime

Then, when I check it, I get

[root@localhost etc]# zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
/etc/localtime  Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
/etc/localtime  Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime  Sun Nov  4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:59:59 2007 EDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
/etc/localtime  Sun Nov  4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:00:00 2007 EST isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000

We shall see this weekend what the system does.

Thanks to all.

Linux Rocks!

Banjo

(_)=='=~

tyme,

Thanks for that link. I will give it a try when I get home to my Mandriva box. If the fix works, then I don't have to lie to my computer and tell it that I live in Goose Bay Labrador

Um....... apologies to anybody who actually does live in Goose Bay (I have been there... no fun)

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Thanks for the pointer. I will go look at NTP. If it is a pain to do I will just set the clock manually.

I tend to forget about this stuff because even my wristwatch synchs up with WWVB every night.

I have a script that synchs the clock manually with a CLI, so maybe I will try that as well.

Thanks,

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Greetings,

I did a search of the forum on the new Daylight Savings time expecting a bunch of topics. I was surprised to find nothing definitive on the issue. How are people dealing with this silliness? Are people just setting the clock manually?

Sorry if this question has already been answered; I couldn't find it.

Thanks,

Banjo

(_)=='=~

One last note on this topic and then I will stop talking to myself

My Kmail came back with no identities or accounts. Rather than manually configure the app, I grabbed the previous, backed-up config files and copied them into the new /home/brian/.kde/share/config directory. It took me a while to find the proper magic, so I thought that I would post it here.

Log in

Copy backed up versions of

/home/brian/.kde/share/config/kmailrc

/home/brian/.kde/share/config/emailidentities

into the new config folder

Log out

Log back in.

I had to copy both of the files and then log back in or the config got lost. Without both files there at login time, one of them seemed to clobber the other and the accounts were lost.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Well, I fixed the problem, although I was not able to find out what went wrong to cause it.

Here is how I fixed it.

Logged in as me (regular user, not root)

su to the non-working user account

mv .kde .kdesave

Logged out as me

Logged in as non-working user.

KDE came up fine with the keyboard working OK, but the user was back to the defaults as though brand new to KDE. Now we just need to reconfigure the desktop and apps to the way they were when the problem occurred. This should not be too difficult since very little customization had been done.

If anybody knows what KDE config file configures the keyboard, I am still interested in learning about that, but for now we are back online.

Thanks to all

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I have Mandy 2006 which has been working fine now for many months.

Suddenly the keyboard has stopped working for one user only. There is no keyboard action at all for that one user (I cannot even turn num lock on/off) and all the other users work fine. I have not changed anything in the system setup. I have rebooted and logged in again. The behavior is the same. No keyboard for that one user. I have disconnected and reconnected the key board to no avail.

If I log in as a working user and then su to the non-working user in a console, the keyboard continues to work fine with the effective user.

I am using the kde desktop.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: One last bit of information. If I log the non-working user in with the gnome desktop, the keyboard works fine. So this is definitely related to KDE somehow.

Edit 2: I copied the .kde/share directory from a working user to the home directory of this non-working user and the keyboard now works. I do not want to leave it like this because then this user is starting all over again configuring KDE. Anybody know where I can start looking for a corrupt file?

Thanks

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Thanks a lot you all realy helped me with my "linux break-down" and i think it passed (lets hope so) but it hard for me to start from nothing i mean i'm a windows kid for 23 years (until age 8 it was DOS) so i have no idea where to begin :D

 

but thanks again

Nimrod

Has fnWindows been around for 23 years? :o Where did the time go? Oh, wait a minute...... reboots and virus scans and spyware and...........

Linux rocks! It just takes a bit of effort to find your way around it. Start reading and you will figure it out.

P.S. This forum is great, and they have bailed me out of some really tight messes.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Ok. I fixed it.

Sorry about the panic.

I deleted my sources and replaced them with ftp://mirrors.usc.edu/ and it worked.

In my own defense, though, hanging up the program is a really really unfriendly way to tell me that my sources are stale.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I am trying to install a program (lilypond) that the MCC installer has found in my sources.

I set my sources up a while ago using easy-urpmi. It worked fine for a while, but now whenever I try to install a program it freezes.

I am running Mandy 2006 from Power Pack. I go to the View Installable Software tool in the MCC and search for lilypond and it finds the dependencies etc etc. I select the programs, approve the dependencies, and click on Install. It displays a dialog box with the title "Package Installation" and the text "Initializing" and that is all she wrote.

The program freezes forever. I have to Kill the process as root to break out of it.

Does anybody know what I need to do to get my rpmdrake back? I really would like to be able to install programs on my computer again.

Thanks in advance

Banjo

(_)=='=~

P.S. I looked at my sources in MCC, and I have both Main and Contrib pointing here:

ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/

I can no longer find that mirror in the list at easyurpmi. Is it still there? If not, will that cause rpmdrake to hang?

Thx.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried it, and it still tried to open the file called "%1".

I am suspecting that there is a special KDE protocol to get the file name to the app, and the Windows app does not understand it. The entry for the GIMP has no arguments on the command line at all, and yet it somehow figures out the name of the file to open.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I just tried putting the %1 inside of the quotation marks in my file association command line. When I invoked the program, the busy cursor spun for a minute or so in the kicker icon and then it just disappeared. To see what the error was, I ran the same command line in a console:

~>wine "C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe %1"
wine: cannot find 'C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe %1'

I guess that since Windows file names can have spaces in them the %1 is concatenated onto the name of the executable. Bummer.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I will try that when I get back to my Linux box. I am at my day job now, and they don't do Linux (fools!)

BTW, wine is working out quite well for this. I thought that I had been forced out of my fav IrfanView, and I am glad to have it back. Installing wine on Mandy 2006 was painless. I clicked "Install" and stuffed the DVD into the cupholder and then it worked. For Irfan I had to download mfc42.dll, and copy it into "C:\windows\system" but that was pretty easy too. I have tried to run Linux apps on fnWindows..... Not so easy.

Linux rocks!

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I changed my command line for the file association to

wine "C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe"

and IrfanView comes up with no file loaded.

I added in the %1 like this

wine "C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" %1

and I get the error box which says that %1 is in an unkown format. So the argument "%1" is being passed into the program, but with no substitution.

I tried this:

wine "C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" %U

and the result is the same as with no argument at all. IrfanView just comes up with no file.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try that when I get back to my Linux box tonight.

I did try %U once and it appeared to have no effect, but then I was using the Linux path to the app.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I have four programs associated with the .jpg file format, Kuickshow, Showfoto, GIMP, and now IrfanView

When I invoke the dialog using Edit File Types and then edit the asoociations I get the following command lines for each of them:

kuickshow %i %m -caption "%c" %U

/usr/bin/gimp-remote-2.2

showfoto %i %m -caption "%c" %U

"/home/brian/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/IrfanView/i_view32.exe" %1

I need the quotes around the path to irfan because of the space in the directory name "Program Files". If I leave off the quotes it fails to find the program, i_view32.exe.

When I right click and invoke IrfanView on the .jpg image Irfan runs and displays a box with this in it:

%1: CAN'T READ FILE HEADER!

UNKNOWN FILE FORMAT!

When I click on the OK button, Irfan is running with no file open. (edited)

If I drop the %1, Irfan just runs and has no file open.

Is there an escape sequence in that command line field that I can use to supply the file name to IrfanView?

I am running KDE 3.4.2 under Madriva 2006.

Thanks again.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Irfan can take a file name parameter directly, so I don't think that I need a script.

If I did write a script I would have to pass the file name to the script as well, so then I am left with the same question I had before, "What do I put into the File Association command line to pass the file name as an argument to the command that is being invoked?" I am beginning to suspect that it is simply built into KDE apps, and the Windows app will not ever work in that way.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I tried %1 and it tried to read a file called "%1" and failed. Do I have to escape it somehow?

Banjo

(_)=='=~

Edit: I Googled again and found here http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase/faq/filemanager.html that %i, %m, and %c are specific switches known to KDE apps. Since Irfan is a Windows app it does not understand them. Irfan reports that those parameters send:

%i => -ICON

%m => -MINIICON

%c => I_VIEW32.EXE (the name of the program)

and Irfan does not understand them.

I still do not know how the file name gets reported to the app.

B.

I have recently installed wine so that I can run Irfan View on my Mandy 2006. Irfan works great, but I am trying to put the program into the right click menu along with the other file associations and I cannot make it work right. I put the program name in there, and Irfan comes up just fine, but with no file opened. I know that Irfan can take a command line parameter, but I do not know how to specify that in the "Edit File Type" dialog box.

I see some escape sequences for other programs such as %i, %m, %c and %U. Does anybody know which of these expresses the name of the file that I right clicked on. I have googled until I am blind and crazy, and I cannot find this info.

Thanks

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

I have Mandriva 2006 on a 2 Gig Celeron with 512 Meg Ram.

When I boot the control panel it sits there with the spinning glass in the kicker bar for about 30 seconds even though the dialog box has long since been displayed. I can still click on the items in the dialog, but the busy cursor just keeps spinning.

Then, when I finally click on the Install Software button, rpmDrake goes away for 30 to 60 seconds or more reading the databases. This seems inordinately slow to me too. I also have downloaded the synthesis list.

It does seem slow, but I don't install stuff very often, so I am just living with it for now.

Functionally it seems to work just fine. I have recently installed OOo2 and wine with no issues.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I just did this with Mandy 9.1 and it worked great. I put it onto a new disk just to be safe. You can find my complete writeup on the experience at this thread: https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=31040&hl=

Banjo

(_)=='=~

I have Kmail 1.8.2 on my new Mandy 2006.

When messages show up with the same subject, they are displayed as "threads" and are automatically staggered to the right under the first message. That is all well and good, but I have run into a problem. I have one thread that has been going on so long (since Jan 1) that the later emails trail off the right hand edge of the screen. My boo boo. But I can't get to those emails at the end of the thread to read 'em.

Is there a way to turn off the thread display and just show the collection of emails? This old dog does not like the new trick.

I tried Settings=>Configure KMail=>Message List and turned off "Threaded Message List". When I did that, the whole thread just seemed to disappear.

Any KMail experts out there?

Thanks

Banjo

(_)=='=~

OK. OK........... OK........... I'm an idiot............

Select the folder. Folder=><uncheck Thread Messages>.

Ta daaaa

Thanks anyway

Never mind.

(I am such an idiot!)

Banjo

(_)=='=~

How much of root is on your / partition? When I set up my new disk I put /usr onto a separate (large) partition because that is where the programs get installed. We need more information about your setup in order to help.

Hang in there. Linux is worth the trouble.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

BTW, I once copied my entire system to a larger hard drive. I documented the whole process here:

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=12389&hl=disk

You may just want to port your old system over to the new disk and then reformat the old disk for extra storage.